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Are You Covered By the In-Person Work Mandate for Federal Employees?

On January 20, 2025, President Trump’s first day in office during his second term, he issued a memorandum that states, in full: “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary. “This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law.” With these two sentences, President Trump upended normal life for approximately 10 percent of the federal workforce. While affected federal employees may have hoped that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would take a measured approach to requiring in-person work, any such hopes were dashed when the OPM issued a memorandum of its own providing guidance on President Trump’s memorandum two days later.

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